Children Of Bodom
Are You Dead Yet?

THE REVIEW

Fifth chapter for the sons of Lake Bodom... and now I'd like to say: an amazing masterpiece that redeems the intricate (but interesting) "Hate Crew Deathroll" and the nice (but nothing more) "Follow The Reaper".

Unfortunately, assuming I don't want to hit a sore spot, I can't deny that this album is a disappointment.
Although salvageable, it remains the lowest point of an exceptional career. The issue is that Children Of Bodom have become one of my favorite bands for two reasons:
1. "Something Wild" was the first Metal album I listened to.
2. The classical taste of Lahio's guitar playing with a Malmsteen-esque touch, leading it towards more extreme horizons, and the fantastic keyboard that brought the melody to merge symbiotically with the brutality of Death Metal.
"Are You Dead Yet?" is a very technical album, but it doesn't resonate.

The songs don't stick in your head and the solos lack feeling, they are uninspired. The Thrash influences devastate the Power base and that melodic sense that belonged to the first two albums is sadly abandoned. The early music of Children Of Bodom was something that evoked a satanic and mystical spirit (see "Red Light In My Eyes part.1" and "Touch Like Angel Of Death"), while this album finds Lahio singing in a Nu-Metal style, the keyboard is no longer a key component and everything sounds too much like Slipknot (a mess?). The riffs aren't far from "The Gathering" by Testament (now that's a masterpiece), but even though they are quite powerful, they don't have the same emotional impact.
The best songs are the title track and the first single "In Your Face," but they are not masterpieces. Overall, the result is too homogeneous, repetitive, and unable to capture the listener.

In the meantime, I'm off to listen to the ride of "Towards Dead End".